AWS is one of the top cloud service providers planned for SAP S/4HANA deployment this year, according to SAPinsider’s recent
Deployment Approaches to SAP S/4HANA 2025 report. The hyperscaler platform made up considerable ground on Microsoft Azure in this year’s report, with Azure cited by 31% as a planned cloud service provider and AWS selected by 29%. AWS’s gains with SAP customers follow significant investment in supporting large enterprises.
Another step in that direction came recently when AWS announced the availability of Amazon EC2 R8i and R8i-flex instances built on the new Intel Xeon 6 processors The aim of this new offering is to target workloads that require large memory footprints, high sustained CPU utilization, and improved scalability. The flex instances are designed to be a more cost-efficient option for workloads that don’t need the highest sustained CPU levels.
The R8i family on Intel’s architecture is designed for memory-intensive workloads like databases, big data analytics, and AI applications, offering up to 20% more performance and 2.5x the memory throughput compared to previous R7i generations, alongside up to 15% better price performance. It is meant to support the most critical SAP systems with the largest footprints, such as SAP S/4HANA, and is backed by SAP certification, benchmarked at 142,100 SAP Application Performance Standard (aSAPS). The level of benchmarking represents the
highest performance compared to similar Intel-based systems in both cloud and on-premise deployments.
With this release making AWS an even bigger player in the SAP S/4HANA deployment market, it will be interesting to see whether the cloud provider continues to gain ground or even overcome Microsoft Azure, which had once built a significant market share in 2024 according to year-over-year data from SAPinsider’s research. While Microsoft held a 46% share of planned deployments among our respondents in 2024, that dipped to 31% in 2025 while AWS rose from 22% to 29%.
Partnering with Intel to provide a potentially powerful foundation for SAP S/4HANA deployments is part of a journey AWS has undertaken to serve the largest companies. So far, that journey has paid off in the SAP ecosystem.
What This Means for SAPinsiders
Consider a range of cloud service provider options for deploying SAP S/4HANA before making investment decisions. Vendors like AWS are developing competitive options for large-scale SAP deployments, thereby creating more market competition. That’s good for SAP customers, and they should be sure to explore the latest in vendor innovations.
Assess your CPU requirements for the most cost-effective SAP deployments. Amazon is offering a flex option for this R8i rollout on Intel-powered infrastructure. This is something the cloud service provider has done for other offerings and customers should take advantage of that by getting an understanding of how often they would need the highest sustained CPU levels.
Identify needs for future scalability. This R8ifamily built on Intel Xeon 6 boasts big performance. When planning a SAP S/4HANA deployments, weigh potential growth alongside current workload needs.
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